Justin Amash is the standard bearer for Ron Paul Republicanism in the House of Representatives. He almost got the NSA’s illegal spy program defunded. He stands against big government. He joined the effort to defund Obamacare, something we now all see was worth attempting at any cost.

So naturally the deep pockets of the Republican Party are out to destroy him.

Now it is time for an update. War Hawk Republicans did everything they could to make voters hate Justin Amash. Here is an example:

What were the results? Justin Amash won the primary! Republican voters simply did not believe that Justin Amash’s opposition to NDAA, NSA, or his desire to shut down Gantanomo Bay made him “Al Qaeda’s best friend in Congress.”

Representative Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, is one of the most important civil libertarians in the House of Representatives. He isn’t just a staunch opponent of the NSA’s mass surveillance of Americans—he actually has a sophisticated understanding of surveillance policy (unlike the vast majority of his congressional colleagues) as well as a record of bringing forth actual reform proposals.

Amash voted against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, favored a measure to repeal indefinite detention, and opposed reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act. Little wonder that an ACLU staffer told Mother Jones that he’s “a game changer.”

For his heresies, establishment GOP forces spent a bunch of money trying to oust Amash in a primary. His loss would’ve been especially devastating to civil libertarians. Opposition to Amash came largely from Republican business interests, but Amash’s vote against the debt-ceiling hike—a mistake, in my view—wasn’t the focus of the campaign. Instead, civil-liberties issues played an important role. Amash’s opponents didn’t merely disagree with the Tea Partier’s efforts to stop abuses of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. They equated his position with supporting terrorists…

As much as I love hearing Amash called a “game changer,” he’s really not the story here. The story here is that Republican voters don’t fall for calling someone a traitor just because they oppose wars or spying. Republicans saw the options presented to them and they chose Amash.